iPhone Coming to China Unicom?

Either China Unicom purposely planned on slipping the details of an impending phone launch early, or someone just got fired. Upon perusal of the homepage of China Unicom’s website, viewers were surprised with a pleasant little flash animation of the iPhone right on the top of the page.

Whoa! This is sure an interesting way to drop an atom bomb’s worth of information on a country. Logic would dictate this means China Unicom will receive the honors of selling China’s first iPhones.

Now, here’s where the skeptic in us comes along: note in the screenshot that it says “time to market July 2008.” Does this mean they’re a little behind? Is it just a typo?

My theory is that this page/graphic was created last year in anticipation of a July 2008 release but discussions fell short and it never happened. And then at some point some careless worker accidentally posted that graphic on the site, meaning instead to put something else up.

Or, it could simply be a way to generate interest and publicity for an iPhone coming out sometime in the near future.